


Irgendwo

by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication)



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo [2013] [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anderson Speaks German, Community: hc_bingo, Companionable Snark, Cuddling & Snuggling, Denial of Feelings, Divorce, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Mid-Canon, Pre-Reichenbach, Sally Donovan Appreciation, Tea, it makes everything better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:36:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/bemusedlybespectacled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anderson gets kicked out. Sally lets him in.</p><p>Unabashed fluff, with a thin bitter twist, because Sally doesn't take her tea or her emotions over-sweetened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irgendwo

There’s a knock on her door in the middle of the night.

Actually, there’s several knocks, each one urgent and pounding to be heard over the sound of the absolute downpour outside. Sally, ever the trained cop, uses the peephole first to make sure it’s someone she knows.

It’s Anderson.

She opens the door with an eyeroll. “It’s _three in the bloody morning_ , I don’t care how-”

He has a suitcase. He’s completely soaked through, and his hair is plastered down from the wet.

Sally closes her mouth. “You’d better come in, then.”

* * *

She turns on the electric kettle while he takes off his coat and shoes. She gets the PG Tips and the sugar out of the pantry and the mugs out of the cupboard, and he sits down at her kitchen table in a heap. Neither of them take their tea with milk, but he likes his sugar, even if she thinks he over sweetens it.

Tea bags in the mugs, sugar bowl on the table, and he still hasn’t said anything. “What was it that tipped her off?” she asks. You don’t have to be a Holmes to know when someone’s gotten kicked out.

His laugh is more like a heavy, dark breath. “D’you know, it wasn’t even us? I don’t even think she knows, _still_. We just had another row, and she said she was fed up with me staying out late at crime scenes at all hours and not having any time for her, and then she said she didn’t want to see my face again and told me to get out.” He shrugs. “She just started throwing stuff at me- almost brained me with the suitcase-”

The water in the kettle reaches a rolling boil, and he gets up to turn it off. He fills both the mugs without looking at her. “What’s funny is that, I always wondered how Lestrade could always ignore his wife having affairs left and right when everyone else could tell, but Laura-”

“We were-” Sally doesn’t say _good_ , “careful. Not everyone is a freak who goes ‘round sniffing people.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says. He hands her her mug - no milk, no sugar. He’s the only one who doesn’t need to ask if she wants anything in it. “I just- bit of a shock. You know. Being homeless.”

“Yeah,” she says. She lets her tea steep. She doesn’t say _I understand_ , because you can’t know what it’s like to lose something you’ve never had, and she’s never been married, never even had a boyfriend that lasted longer than a couple of months. She doesn’t say _it’s going to be fine in the morning_ , because she doesn’t believe in empty platitudes. “Yeah,” she says again, and leaves her tea on the table and puts a hand between his shoulderblades, rubbing in small circles. Whatever else they are, they’re friends first, and they both know words can be useless sometimes.

“There’s the couch,” she says. They’ve done a lot of things on that couch, but that’s not what she means. “‘S cheaper than a hotel.”

“More comfy, too,” he says, and she hears what he’s not saying, which is _homey_. She’d told him right off the bat that she didn’t want anything grand or unsustainable, anything they couldn’t give up without hurting each other, and he’s skidding dangerously close to that carefully-maintained line.

 _Of course he is,_ she thinks. _He’s gonna look for anything normal right now, isn’t he?_

They stand there, the tea cooling, for several long minutes. This silence isn’t like him, but then, neither is showing up on her doorstep in the rain.

“Are you going to go back to sleep?” he asks, after a while.

Sally takes her hand off his back to elbow him. Hard. “What, you wake me up and then expect me to go right back to bed? Haven’t even finished my tea yet.”

He swallows. “Sally, I-”

“On the couch,” she orders. “We’re watching one of your boring German films and drinking this _bloody_ tea if it kills us.”

“Oh, _really_ ,” he says, but he puts the tea bag in the bin and puts a heap of sugar in the mug anyway, and walks into the living room.

“And take off your wet things or I’ll smother you with a pillow for soaking my furniture.”

* * *

“That’s assault, you know,” she mumbles drowsily into his chest. _Das Lebens der Anderen_ is playing in the background, but she lost the plot ages ago. Her eyes keep fluttering closed.

“Hmm?”

“Throwin’ things. The suitcase. It’s assault. Could arrest her for you. Y'know, if you wanted.”

“Not worth the trouble. Bad enough I need to figure out this divorce thing.”

“Yeah. Still, would be fun.”

“Arresting Laura for assault?”

“Or just,” she yawns, “scarin’ her a bit.”

“Oh, that’ll be _immensely_ helpful. ‘Hello, Mrs. Anderson, I’m the woman who’s been sleeping with your husband, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t throw suitcases at him-’” She smacks him. “That’s battery.”

“Justified. No jury’ll convict me.”

“Regular criminal mastermind, you are.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Shh, Dreyman’s just discovered that Weisler covered up his sedition.”

“Oh, _joy_.”

“He kept him from being arrested by the Stasi! It’s dramatic.”

“Oh, yeah, practically romantic.”

“ _You_ shut up and go to sleep.”

“So original,” she says. She squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them again. “How long are you thinkin’ of stayin’?”

He sighs heavily, thinking. “I don’t know. Until I can get back into my own flat again, at least. Then I can get my cheque book, go over my finances, find a hotel, ask Lestrade about a good divorce lawyer-”

Sally puts a finger over his lips. “You could stay here, you know.”

Another deep exhale. It’s closer to a laugh than the one before. “Yeah, I know.” He pauses. “That alright with you?”

“Wouldn’t have offered if it wasn’t.”

He pulls the afghan up over them, and holds her a little tighter.

It's still raining.

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my Hurt/Comfort Bingo Wild Card square; I chose "loss of home/shelter."
> 
> The title is German for "somewhere." 
> 
> This could go anywhere in canon, really, but I'm picturing it sometime between the end of A Scandal In Belgravia and the end of The Reichenbach Fall, since Lestrade (possibly) divorces his wife sometime before he meets Sherlock and John at Baskerville, and I don't think Sally would be quite so snappish about Sherlock post-Reichenbach.
> 
> Incidentally, according to the Sherlock wiki, Anderson's first initial is S. Therefore I have named him Simon, if only in my head. Headcanon!Anderson also speaks fluent German, which is why he knows that Rache is German for revenge, and why he doesn't need subtitles but Sally does. _I have a lot of Donovan/Anderson feelings, okay?_


End file.
